(Download) "Betting on Oil: The World Bank's Attempt to Promote Accountability in Chad." by Global Governance ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Betting on Oil: The World Bank's Attempt to Promote Accountability in Chad.
- Author : Global Governance
- Release Date : January 01, 2011
- Genre: Politics & Current Events,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 278 KB
Description
Can international donors ensure that poor countries spend their natural resource revenues on development? This article reviews the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline Project and the World Bank's fourteen-year effort to foster pro-poor expenditure of resource revenues in Chad. The World Bank used its leverage as a gatekeeper of private sector oil investment to write fiscal restrictions and extragovernmental oversight into Chadian law. These efforts, however, were not sufficient to overcome the country's poor governance and weak political accountability. The article argues that external donor efforts to build better governance in undemocratic states are unlikely to overcome resource curse and obsolescing bargain dynamics. They may even do more harm than good. The article recommends that the World Bank implement the 2003 Extractive Industry Review suggestion to cease investing in oil production. If the Bank does continue to lend to countries like Chad, it must ensure that it retains leverage across the life of the project in order to achieve its goals. Keywords: Africa, Chad, governance, resource curse, World Bank. On 9 September 2008, the World Bank ended its fourteen-year involvement with the government of Chad in the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline Project. The decision concluded the Bank's effort to set a new standard for the involvement of international donors in resource-rich, but democracy-poor countries. The Bank had sought to build institutions that would help Chad avoid the economic and political problems typically associated with oil booms in poor countries. The new institutions sought to direct oil revenues toward reducing poverty and ensuring fiscally sound and transparent government spending.